SECTION XII.. Harvesting the Crop and Preparation for Market.

HARVESTING THE CROP AND PREPARATION FOR MARKET.

The heavy blossom appears on the tree in August and September. The principal crop is picked from April to July. A small crop, chiefly from young coffee, is picked from September to December. The produce is sent down to Colombo, the shipping port, from April to September. If the estate be close to a carriage road this is done by carts, which can take from 60 to 80 bushels. The cost of transport is sometimes enormous. It is not unusual to see carts loaded with coffee lying at the bottom of a precipice, while the bullocks which had brought them have died from exhaustion. If not near a road, carrying coolies are employed, or pack bullocks, which take a load of 3 bushels, to transport it either to a store, from which a carriage will convey it to Colombo, or to the navigable point of one of the rivers. Of the various modes and facility, or the want of it, possessed by estates situated in different districts, some idea may be formed in the expense varying from 1s. to 12s. per cwt. for bringing the produce to Colombo.

There are now in Colombo upwards of thirty establishments for the preparation of coffee for shipment, ten or twelve of these employ steam power to drive the requisite machinery. To most of them large barbecues for drying are attached, and cooperages for the preparation of casks, and in the season, which lasts nearly three quarters of the year, from 10,000 to 15,000 women and 1000 to 2000 men are employed in the process.

Though the coffee has been sufficiently dried on the plantation to enable it to reach Colombo in safety, it is not sufficiently hard to part with the silver pellicle which envelops each berry under the parchment skin, and to resist the pressure of the peeler, without some additional drying in the more powerful sun at Colombo.

It is, therefore, again exposed on the barbecue, until it reaches a crisp dryness. (Plate 9 shows the barbecue or drying-floor on Messrs. Worms’ estate, Puselawa, in Ceylon, and the native labourers spreading the coffee to dry.) It is next submitted to the pressure of the peeler, which breaks the berry out of the parchment covering, and sets the silver skin at liberty. It may be noticed that the silver skin, though perhaps not adding two ounces to the weight of 112 lbs., gives the coffee an appearance considered to be unsightly in the London market, and, therefore, depreciates its value; its adherence to the coffee, though the cause is not known in the market, is supposed to be generally the result of bad drying on the plantation, being allowed to remain too long wet, or being permitted to heat after it is taken from the cisterns.

Several processes have to be gone through before the article known in commerce as coffee is produced. In the first place, the pulpy exterior of the berry, as we have seen, has to be removed by the process of pulping, which separates the seed and its thin covering, called the parchment, from the husk. When this pulping process is completed, we have the parchment by itself in a cistern, and the next process consists in getting rid of the mucilage with which it is covered. For this purpose the water is drained from the cistern, and fermentation is allowed to take place, which it readily does after a period of twenty-four hours, or even less on a low estate, where the climate is warm, though forty-eight hours are generally required on the highest estates.

Water is then admitted into the cistern, and the coffee being agitated by wooden rakes, the mucilage combines with the water and is drained off. After this the washed parchment coffee has to be dried to a hard stage, and as it frequently happens that during crop time there is a continuance of wet weather for weeks and months together, the chief difficulties which a planter has to contend with now present themselves.

The peeler, or machine for removing the parchment, consists of a circular trough, in which a wheel is made to travel; this is generally made of wood, and shod with copper sheeting, and is turned by central pressure, like the capstan of a ship, either by hand or by the gearing of machinery attached to a steam-engine. An improvement on this has been made by constructing the travelling wheels of iron, and the trough of plates of the same metal; these plates being serrated in one direction, so as to present a rough surface to the coffee, facilitate the fracture of the parchment. Two wheels are generally made to work in one trough, each of which is provided with a kind of scraper, to stir up the coffee in its path and cause it to present a new face to the pressure.

A coffee-peeler is usually made of durable wood or iron. The circumference of the machine is 36 feet; the breadth between the circles in the machine is 1 foot. The height of the wheel 6 feet; the thickness near the axle-tree 1 foot, and on the top 6 inches; twelve men or four bullocks can turn it. If turned by men 200 bushels of coffee, and if worked by bullocks 140 bushels, can be obtained in nine hours; if by steam about 800 or 1000 bushels. The cost of constructing a machine to be worked by men or bullocks is 25l., by steam 600l.

After undergoing this process, the coffee is passed into a winnower, which removes nearly the whole of the parchment and silver skin. It is now given to the women, in quantities of a bushel each, to be picked over by hand, who take out all blacks, broken berries, triage, or anything calculated to injure its even quality. Further to improve its appearance, the coffee is passed through a sizing machine, by which generally three sizes are separated: the round, or pea berry, and a larger and smaller berry, each of which from the separation is more even in appearance, and as such preferred in the London market.

Sizers are variously made of perforated sheet zinc or wire gauze, with openings of three sizes, increasing from the top in the form of a long pipe, which, being slightly inclined and made to revolve, pass the coffee, poured in above into the bins constructed to receive the different sizes.

The coffee, now ready to be packed, is at once put into casks, containing 6 or 7 cwt. each, and sent away on board ship without delay. These processes are constantly improving and are now thoroughly understood--a remark which would seem uncalled for, but for the recollection of the bungling and conflicting systems which were in vogue a few years since.